What I’ve Been Doing.

Lately I have gotten a lot of “You looks so good Janika, what have you been doing?”

This has always come in moments of weight loss for me. The year before my wedding when I did the tour of skinny everyone nearly lost their minds for my secrets.

Back then it was calorie counting. I get comfy in obsessive thinking. Calorie counting was no match for the horror of my wedding planning, and the weight came on to fill all those mucky places I did not want to look at.

This time around I keep answering nothing, because it really feels like nothing. It feels like I am just living my life. No worrying about weight at all, and it keeps falling off. This morning while I was out on my walk basking in the sunshine, and slipping on the patches of ice underneath my holey, in need of being replaced sneakers I realized that nothing much is not really true at all.

I guess if I am being honest I have been doing a lot. I I just kept making little life changes that are finally showing results.

I have been doing a lot of Jesus, Unicorns, good books, long walks.

I have done a shit ton of affirmations even though in the beginning I would stop mid walk and laugh until I cried, because they are so god damn corny.

I have been unapologetically falling in love with myself, and my life, and not only for the unbelievable good looks the good lord bestowed upon this leo.

I have been doing more of what I love, I have been trying really hard to honor the discomfort inside myself. More than anything I have been learning how to be the person I am meant to be.

When I became a Mother, this road was laid before me. This responsibility to be proud of myself becoming a goal, not a size on the tag of my jeans, but a longing for peace, for wholeness, for love.

I have faced down demons long buried in a childhood that was as tumultuous, and magical as Days Of Our Lives, I have made countless errors in judgement, loved, lost, broken, healed.

I have read Pema Chodron books back to back. I have walked for miles, and miles. Down city, and residential neighborhood streets with these huge red headphones, and fun scarves. Most recently these walks start with a prayer, and then I let the Universe whisper me messages with the songs that play.

Some days I end up in full blown ugly cry. I stopped wondering what the neighborhood thinks since most warm weather walks end with me placing my hands on the huge oak tree in front of our house. Eyes closed to let the magic in. I live on a pretty busy street, and being the neighborhood weirdo has always been a goal of mine. I hope whatever story they have of me, it is a fun one.

I have walked away from things not meant for me, I have created boundaries, I have stopped confusing a sad miserable point of view as acceptable, I have softened, I have understood that the power to change my feelings is in the center of this stardust body.

I have sat in a catholic church pew Sunday after Sunday, lighting candles, Disney princess voice on full blown, heart open in the place that makes me feel the most Jesus. I have come home to places and brought my sparkly pants with me. I close my eyes in this ornate, hard to heat building, and I fall to my knees in gratitude.

I pull all sorts of oracle decks begging for guidance I am too arrogant to see, I tuck crystals in every open space I can find, and I leave candy in my yard for the fairies.

I love, I get hurt, and I breathe. I yin yoga, I buy too many wrestling t shirts, and when I eat bag of Cape Cod Salt and Vinegar chips I know I do not need them, but crunching them is one of my favorite parts of being alive. I fail, and I smile.

I have learned that life is what you make it, and somewhere I thought I always knew that, but I was afraid to act. Afraid of what might be waiting on the other side, what I might lose to get there, because I paint my world in the horror movie shades of grief, drama, agony, and despair.

I swallow the fear, I listen to nonstop NF,I buy pleather jackets that remind me of Buffy, but make me look like I belong in a biker bar, I write, I send snail mail, I remind myself that only love is real. I strive to live with intention not production. I fight to savor this experience when the entire world is trying to rush me into doing.

I sit,I listen, I shut up, I let it be.

The magic is in the perseverance, in the faith. I pray for courage, not success. The success is inevitable if I have the balls to get there.

I also pray that we all make it, because there is enough love out there for us all.